By Edward Nawotka AUSTIN: Men with full lumberjack beards and ironic t-shirts flirting with women in baby-doll dresses and artful “ink,” everyone sneaking peeks at their iPhones, tapping on their Macs or pecking at the iPads: this is the annual mating ritual called SXSW Interactive, the Austin, Texas tech fest where the world has been introduced to new services and …

By Olivia Snaije PARIS: “It’s all about de-materialization,” says Clément Apap, co-founder of Sens Critique (Critical Sense), a new virtual library for books, films, TV series, graphic novels and music –- which launched in December and has already attracted 85,000 users. Users can join Sens Critique for free or simply adopt the site as something akin to a cultural magazine. …

By Hannah Johnson According to a survey conducted by the Australia Council for the Arts, 84% of Australians are avid readers of literature and one in five survey respondents read poetry. The results also showed that 15-24 year-olds are the most engaged in creating art online, whether that is writing, visual arts, theater or music. The Australia Council even made …

By Siobhan O’Leary Mobile Internet use is growing in leaps and bounds in Germany thanks to new devices on the market and lower monthly rates, reports the Boersenblatt. Unit sales for smartphones are expected to grow by 47% in 2010, to 8.2 million units (with sales in euros likely to grow 33%, to 1.5 billion euros), based on the tech …

By Edward Nawotka httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_0FgRKsqqUa Richard Eoin Nash isn’t alone in thinking that publishing as we know it is coming to an end. He’s part of a much broader constituency who believes the old paradigms are shifting away from individual producers and toward crowds. Among the chief progenitors of this idea is Clay Shirkey. His book Here Comes Everybody (now in …

By Edward Nawotka BEIJING: Today is the day China turned off the internet. Or at least that is the hope of artist Ai Weiwei. Weiwei called on China’s 360 million internet users to “stop working, reading, chatting, blogging, gaming and mailing” to protest the Chinese government’s demand that computers users have to have installed its controversial Green Dam Youth Escort …

By Edward Nawotka Honestly, I find nothing more annoying than after a good conversation with someone to discover that I’m not carrying any business cards. They’re so small, so essential…and so, irrelevant? Perhaps it’s true that in this age of paperless email and Twitter it’s just as easy to send someone a text or SMS with your information. Sure, but …